


Call and Answer

by tisfan



Series: Tony Stark Bingo [9]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Arc Reactor, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Crack Treated Seriously, Don't Ask, Don't Try This At Home, M/M, Not kidding, Sirens, The Author Regrets Everything, mermaid au, pre slash, really - Freeform, some mild gore, the library of alexandria was a mermaid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-12 01:34:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15328794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: Square Filled: S2 - image: Tony in underwear and bandagesA hundred years ago, the siren, Bucky, sent a call into the careless stars for help… today, someone finally answered.





	Call and Answer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [james](https://archiveofourown.org/users/james/gifts).



> Art from monobuu!

 

**  
** “Good afternoon, sir,” Jarvis said as the sleep capsule cracked open and the lights started coming up all around the ship. Systems whirred to life and the oxy was pouring in from the ventilation systems. “Trip log: Day 49, arrival to outer edge of the Scorpious system. Scanners are active, showing evidence of multiple crystalline silicates, crystalized ice water, and multiple extra-solar carbonites. The greatest concentration of these, which may indicate a life form, or cluster of life forms, is rapidly approaching the dark lane of the nebula. Interior temperatures for that region are well outside our shield’s tolerances.”

“In other words,” Tony said, dragging himself to a seated position, “if you’re going to do something, do it fast. Estimates on time to object loss.”

Everything hurt. His head ached, not abnormal coming out of a seven week hypersleep. The remnants of the sleepmask, which kept his mouth and eyes and nose moist during hibernation was clinging to him. He scraped it off; yuck. He would have supposed that after centuries of space travel, some enterprising company might have developed a sleep mask that woke him up with minty-fresh breath, instead of being coated in sleep gunk.

 _If you want something done right, do it yourself._ He tagged the thought and let it slide back into his data chip. The neural interface was a little sluggish. Not unusual, either.

He had muscle cramps in his legs, pain in his joints. The balls of his feet were tender. Annoying, but not worrisome.

What was of concern was the ache in his chest, the way sizzling lines of pain etched out from his heart. Breathing was a strain. “And while you’re at it, what’s the blood toxicity level?”

“Estimated thirty-one hours until the potential life-form is out of reach, blood toxicity level is at seventy percent. With minimal exertion, you have a waking lifespan of twenty-six days. With each level of increased activity, you lower your remaining time by twelve percent. Recommend delegating all physical tasks to Dum-E and U. Remain in medbay, sir, and allow us to--”

“Yeah, no, that’s not gonna happen,” Tony said. “Look, if this fails, I’m done and dead anyway, J, you know that. I’m not going to risk fucking it up because Dum-E cannot be trusted to do extravehicular excursions.”

“As you say, sir,” Jarvis relented. Dum-E, as if responding to his name, was already wheeling in Tony’s direction, a carafe of coffee in his claw. He didn’t have a mug, but that was okay, Tony could drink out of the pot. He’d done if before.

He pushed at his chest; the arc-reactor set directly over his sternum hurt. It was the sort of pain that he’d gotten used to. Steady, aching pressure these days, where it had once been unimaginable agony. He supposed a body could get used to anything, given enough time. U was there, too, bringing bandages and a sterile robe. Tony took a few sips of coffee, unwrapped the sleep dressing. The light from the arc-reactor lit up medical, a cold blue glow, like a frozen star.

Tony was cold, but his skin was also tingling as his blood pumped; the itches were another symptom of hypersleep. He waved off the offered robe. There was no one to see him in the ship, wandering around in his underwear and a handful of bandages. “Jarvis, warm it up in here,” he ordered. “Get me visuals on the object, and any angles of approach. Get the suit online, update any environmental maps.”

“May I suggest breakfast, sir?”

“You may not,” Tony snapped, taking another sip of coffee. “Stop trying to mother me, J.”

“Sir, I have studied all available materials around your history, and I must say, I am _nothing_ like your mother,” Jarvis responded, a bit snippy. But he was already raising the air temperature in Tony’s small ship, so that was good.

“That’s true, Jarvis,” Tony said. “Tell ya what, give me time to object, and if there’s a large enough gap, I’ll have a waffle.”

“If you will direct your attention to the starboard porthole, sir,” Jarvis said, “You will see the object in question.”

“It’s a dot,” Tony said, but he staggered over to the porthole and touched the high index clear plastics that made up the viewport.

“Of course it is, sir,” Jarvis said. “We are in space; space is very, very big.”

“Magnify,” Tony said. He stroked his fingers over the plastics. Like he could just reach out and grab what might be his only remaining hope. “I’m not sure what I’m seeing here, Jarvis. Analyze.”

He didn’t really listen to Jarvis, aside from the part of his brain that was always listening, analysing, considering. Instead, he leaned closer to the magnification to squint at it.

Tony was pretty sure of what he was seeing.

A man-sized.

Space.

Fish.

***

Bucky was awake. There was a ship near. By certain sense of the word near. The vastness of space covered distances that even a siren’s voice couldn’t reach. But this one was actually in range. He could be _heard_.

He raised his song; a siren’s voice was a combination of movement for the dust particles that made up the tiny bits of matter between the stars, and an electronic signal that would echo through any organized carbon; life forms or intellectual designed space-faring vessels. It was a call and a cry, a lure and a longing. Irresistible. Sometimes it would mimic a beacon of civilization, or a distress signal, or just an unnamable desire to _be there_.

If there was anything in a thousand light years in any direction, he would be _heard_.

And then, would they come, would they care, would they help?

Bucky didn’t know, but all he could do was sing.

Trapped by an accident so long ago that time had ceased to mean anything to him. His left arm was pinned, and even his strength wasn’t enough to move the object off him, held in place by the laws of motion; a collision that pinned him between the asteroid where he’d been resting and the meteor that crashed, driving Bucky’s resting ground into deep space at speeds that pushed and fought and held him down.

His arm was crushed, useless, and still, he didn’t have the strength or leverage to tear himself free, leave the arm behind. There was nothing in reach that he could have used to cut himself loose.

He was stuck.

He was starving.

And, based on trajectory, he was only hours from burning up in a nebula. Even his space-worthy skin wasn’t strong enough to resist the heat death of a pair of dying stars.

 _Come to me,_ he sang _. Come to me and I will give you knowledge. Come, come and I will give you ease. Come to me, and I will grant all your dreams._

Time passed.

He wasn’t sure what he was seeing; a brilliant figure in red and gold, a light shining out of its chest like a star.

The creature was flying, almost dancing through space, graceful. By design.

Bucky song changed; _welcome, pity, help me, please. Anything you want, I’m dying._

“Jarvis, give me a cutting laser,” the creature said, an electronic medley of a voice. Emotionless, but somehow… Bucky could hear it, vibrations on the stone around him, particles in the air, reverberating in his head.

Bucky turned to look up at the creature, reached for it with his one free hand. _Help me._

The red and gold creature -- some sort of armored pressure suit, Bucky decided. A space combatant -- held out metal fingers, touched Bucky’s palm. “Don’t be afraid,” it said. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m gonna get you out of there.”

Bucky, a creature who had lived milenia among the stars, who’d survived centuries pinned under a scrap of space debris, wasn’t afraid. He _wasn’t_.

Or at least, he wasn’t afraid of the creature. He was afraid of his reaction to the creature. Gratitude flooded him, affection, curiosity.

Nothing he’d ever known. There was the song in space, there was knowledge, and there were meals.

He’d never had a companion, as he vaguely understood the concept from the civilizations whose knowledge had been preserved by the sirens. They sang it to each other across the stars. The sirens were the keepers of magic, the dreamers of dreams. They knew many secrets.

The red armored creature used a beam of light from the star at his heart to cut the rock free, dug the injured Bucky from the rubble. Pulled Bucky up to cradle him against the creature’s chest. “Autopilot, J, back to the ship.”

 _One wish,_ Bucky sang. _I will grant you._

***

“Get us out of here, J, and bring up medical, I want everything you--”

“Beg your pardon, sir,” Jarvis interrupted, “but there are-- ma..siive… data…”

“Come on, don’t do this to me, buddy,” Tony said. He carried the creature back toward medical, peeling back the suit’s faceplate as soon as he’d cleared the airlock.

The being in his arms appeared to be humanoid, with a fish tail, thick gill slits at the throat, webbed fingers. Everything that old earth legends about mermaids were supposed to look like. Except that it was quite obviously living -- albeit, barely -- in space. No pressure suit, no oxygen. The thing shouldn’t be alive at all, and yet it was.

Well, and its arm was crushed, broken and useless, the skin on the fingers of the left hand were frozen and necrotic besides.

The rest of the suit peeled off, leaving Tony standing around in his underthings, but they were warm underthings, at least, and the itching from hypersleep was down to a basic maybe I should take a shower range of annoyance. The mermaid -- well, what else was Tony supposed to call it, it’s not like it had introduced itself before passing out -- filled almost one entire cot just for the top half of it, and the tail was ridiculously long; requiring Tony to set up a sling to hold the thing level. Or, at least, Tony assumed it would be comfortable laying flat. Maybe it wouldn’t.

But at least for the time being, flat it was.

“So, uh, Jarvis, buddy, you okay?”

“Yes sir, my apologies, there was quite a surge of data transfer just as you boarded with our guest. The information is optimally compacted for storage, but, well, there’s a lot, sir,” Jarvis said. “How can I be of assistance now?”

“What is this… person?”

“I believe, sir, that it is both the source of the data delivery via a previously unknown optimal transspace method, and the answers you were seeking. Consider this person, sir, a living library. A repository of data from every civilization in its sphere of influence, and that sphere is vaster than even I can comprehend.”

“Well,” Tony said. “See if you can cudgel the data into behaving, get me some biological and medical data on our guest, and while we’re at it, get us the hell away from that nebula before I get a tan.”

“Of course, sir.”

***

When Bucky woke up again, there was something heavy attached to him. Attacking him. Taking over-- he clawed at the offending thing, bright and silvery and it was part of him, and--

“Hey, hey, hey, shhh, shhh, it’s all right,” the creature said. Except that it wasn’t the creature, it was something else. Save for that brilliant star in its chest, but maybe that was indicative of race; Bucky had never seen an alien like that before, but the universe was vast and even as much as he knew, there was always more to learn. “I’ve got you, it’s all right. I know, it looks weird, but I didn’t know what else to do, you were dying. The dead tissue was poisoning you.”

Bucky looked up at the creature and it had a face, hair, mouth, and upper body like Bucky’s own, even if that star in its chest was new and unusual. Lower, and it was split, one of those creatures confined to the land, with _legs_ and _feet_.

“Yeah, they’re pretty weird too, I guess,” the creature said, gathering the surface thoughts up from Bucky, somehow. “Don’t worry about that, either. You just linked in with my ship’s systems when I brought you on board. And this-- well, you gave me the designs for it, so I thought you wanted to-- I’m sorry.”

Bucky actually looked, looked at the thing, and it was a silvery replica of his arm, all the way down to the delicate webbing between his fingers. He shifted, moved it. The arm responded to his every thought, like it was a part of his own body, and it had been so long since he’d been able to move at all that he suddenly keened, crying out the shame and terror and loneliness he’d had for so, so very long.

The creature holding him grimaced, its brown eyes filling with liquid. “Well, that’s a dirge, isn’t it? It’s okay. I’m going to help you, keep you safe. I promise.” The liquid spilled down the creature’s face and Bucky reached out to touch it. What a strange thing, this-- he tasted it. Saline fluid, filled with hormones and… _you’re sad?_

“Yeah, tears. That happens. Emotions, and then we sort of leak out the eyeballs to get rid of the excess. It’s not a very efficient system, more proof against intelligent design, but you know how that goes. Food pipe and airway right next to each other, the playground between the sewers. No tail, which we really should have, based on the agonizing amount of back pain we suffer. God was an idiot.”

_Why?_

“I thought I was helping, your own arm, oh, sugar, it was pulverized. I… we can’t repair that sort of structural damage. It had to come off, or you were going to die. So, I built you a new one; your data gave us the connections, really, once I saw the plans, it was almost too easy, but… I didn’t want to frighten you.”

What are you?

“I’m a man, a human, terran, terrestrian, whatever you want to call me,” the creature, the man, said. “From Earth, third rock from our sun, Sol. Here, Jarvis, give me a display. Formally, Anthony Stark, head of Stark Industries. Less formally, just Tony is fine. Is there something I can call you?”

 _Bucky._ It was the least of his names, Singer of Songs, Keeper of Tales, Protector, Dreamer, Mover, Thinker.

“That’s a very informal name, but it’ll do,” Tony said. “Bucky it is. Nice to meet you.”

_You have saved my life. For that, I grant you one request._

“You’re what I came out here to find,” Tony admitted. “I need-- I’m so sorry, I thought you might be a _library_ , or a data store, it never occured to me that you might be a person, and if you’re a person, then it’s my duty to save you, like I would do for any other person. You don’t owe me anything. I helped you, because you needed to be helped.”

_What did you hear of me?_

“Knowledge, that could be found beyond the stars,” Tony said. “Romantic. Garbage, probably, but I’m… well, what could it hurt? I came.”

_You came because I called you. A hundred years ago, I cried for help and you came._

“Yeah, you got the wrong guy,” Tony said. “A hundred years ago, I wasn’t even born.”

But Bucky was seeing clearly now, unclouded by fear and uncertainty. _A hundred years ago, your forebear started on the path, bringing new technology to your planet, created a vast store of wealth. Your mother, before your mother, her discovery of the hyperdrive. It came to her in a dream to reach the stars. Your father, pushing you harder, further, faster, until, you. Creating the star in your chest that let you live long enough to reach me. A series of coincidences. God is an idiot._

“You don’t look much like God, honey,” Tony said.

_And so I’m not, but I called and your family, your purpose, your entire life, has been drawn here. You have saved my life because I called and you heard that call. You answered it. You are here. Ask your wish. Whatever is in my power._

***

Tony’d barely skimmed the surface of the technological wonder his guest had brought on board; endless, renewable power, the ability to cross galaxies in mere moments, to spread all across the universe and to--

Do what humans always did. Destroy. Steal. Conquer. They were a race of explorers, true, but with greedy at their back.

Tony could live, find a replacement for the core that made up his arc-reactor. And he could take everything his guest had given him, return home. He would be the most powerful person in the galaxy. And… he would still be alone. The friends he had, some would be loyal, but most would want something from him, would require, would demand and ask and expect, and frankly, it was one of the things he’d loved about his quest. Alone in space, no one could be let down.

He turned to his guest, who was, it seemed, at ease within Tony’s ship. And was offering him riches untold.

“I think… I’d like to stay, if that’s all right. Explore the universe with you.”

_You are dying._

“In a few weeks,” Tony said, shrugging. “I came out here looking for a cure. I think I’ll take what’s behind door number two, Monty.” At the mermaid’s confused look, he clarified. “I’ll take the adventure. Show me everything, for the rest of my span. I’ll die happy.”

Bucky reached out and tapped the arc-reactor. The core, acidic and corroded, spat out into the metal hand that Tony had fashioned. _The rest of your span._

With a flick of his wrist, Bucky discarded the core, and Tony was dying, he was just doing it a hell of a lot faster now. The arc-reactor stuttered and his heart was being torn to pieces, and--

Bucky took a single scale from his tail and slid it into the arc-reactor, where the core had been.

There was a brief, sub-audible thump, like the entire universe took a step to the left.

Tony’s heart stopped, then restarted, beating merrily, as if he’d never been wounded at all, never been forced to build a machine inside his chest, never been sick and desperate and--

“What did you do?”

_Extended your span. Stay, for the rest of it. I will show you the stars and the spaces between them._

Tony reached, and Bucky took his hand.

“You called me…”

_And you came for me._

 

__


End file.
